LSquared

Lorena – Here we are at Crema on a sunny Sunday, the typical scenario with people and dogs enjoying beverages. Laura is at my side, asking, “How’s life?”

Laura – That’s a good starting point with your writing group, isn’t it? We have hot glass mugs of tea. “This is bliss,” says Lorena. We will keep our writing group through the summer. I need feedback for my demo for intensive summer institute. Lorena wants to know how Bodega Bay was. “Pure bliss.”

Lorena – I would also like to know if Laura can think of a way to make this our JOB. We wake up, get to Crema at 10, write, talk, laugh, and write some more…surely its possible. Bliss.

Laura – Ha, ha, ha. Love it. (my quiche is up).

Lorena – As Laura gets her quiche – just another little bday gift to show how grateful I am to have her as my PD mentor, writing group member, and partner in crime – I am forced into the reality of seeing that this is my very first post…oh dear, what is going to happen?

Laura – This month’s writing challenge with Two Writing Teachers has been good to push past the WAIGTWAF (what am I going to write about fear). We are looking for our topic…talking about times our pd crashed and burned. Actually about 5 conversations have been launched….

Lorena – Laura always knows how to get the conversation rolling. She asks me how my ELD PD went…jeez it started off SO well and then just nose dived. No joke, the opening was brilliant, but that was it, afterwards it felt like I was strapped into a plastic seat on that obnoxious ride at Great America – The Drop Zone. Let’s get back to Laura’s adventures, I want to hear more…

Laura – I’m already babbling about how we didn’t hear back from a K-8 dual immersion principal about what would serve her teachers best for our final presentation. Lorena is really onto this bliss thing, using it as a verb, even. So, how was Bodega?

Bodega birthday candles. Fresh crab off the boat. Laughter and 1:1 conversations with A & P and Doug. Bubbly, local cheese, drawing, hot tub…my own suite for sleep. Balmy weather.

Lorena Lit Up

Lorena – I finally got the scoop about Bodega, but Laura’s mind (which is acting like a ping pong table this morning) has wandered into Saturday’s of the past. Like lightning, she locates this picture of how jazzed I was to work with families. This was a delight to teach both parent and child – simultaneously. When do we do it again Laura?

Laura – Okay, I’m lit. We are having a side discussion about guided reading and what’s up with literacy. How I miss using real literature. Yes, the Family Literacy work we got to do was terrific. Lorena and I will do a celebration in May with K-3 families — Writing Into Summer. We will have snacks, book bags and do art with writing about our favorite (secret?) places to read.

Lorena – Honestly, it’s beyond lit, it’s like a fireworks display. “Parteee,” says Laura (told you it is beyond lit). Real LIT, that sounds like bliss, should we add a reading component to our writing group? We could double up as writing and reading partners in crime. Would that make us more than just L squared? Weren’t we supposed to be discussing PD?

Laura – LSquared could mean “Lighten Up and Learn” – we are still thinking how we can do comedy and literacy in schools. We really have too much to talk about. Right now it’s suddenly turned into a job talk….an, oh-by-the-way-there’s a position opening up….

Related

Those eager beavers at Two Writing Teachers (can there really only be two? So prolific!) have put out a reflective post inviting readers to check up on the One Little Word for the year.
On Jan. 6 my rambling discovery draft included this line:

I think I need to give myself a place in the whirlwind.

So it seems I am doing so.

Distinguishing my own voice and sitting still to meditate has changed the way I look at — just about everything. Self care is eating healthy and so is exercise, yes, but self care is so much — so much more.

On Wednesday morning I got a text from Lorena. We are new to the group although we shared a summer institute with the writers. We had invited ourselves by text one afternoon last month while planning a pd.

“Oh no!” I wrote back when she said the organizer, Susan, was going to work with Chrissy at the university on their seminar. The thought of no writing group, of my first one failing, felt terrible.

The photo from my little lime journal is a goal I wrote — the first note I made — in Anne Lamott’s writing seminar last spring. Dear Anne, so funny but also absolutely truthful about the complications of drawing the Artist’s card, told us that day every thing she knows about writing.

And the first thing she said has hung out in my notebook for months undone.

Lorena, who was texting me on the day of the group meeting, offered to get together at Crema and write and talk. I was at school multitasking but jumped at the chance, thinking she meant Wednesday. That one tiny word, tomorrow, slipped past my notice.

I was so grateful she would meet that I began not to mind that the rest of the group cancelled. After school I drove over to the coffee shop, enjoying the late afternoon sun. I got an orange Italian soda, began reading a new book that arrived, and eventually noticed, no Lorena.

I was so convinced we were meeting Wednesday I didn’t look at our string of texts. Instead I sent her the photo and asked if she was okay. Ah hah, now I know why my first writing group meeting was only me.

It does say something. It’s up to me to write. And yes, I need the feedback. I need someone, some trusted readers who will explain to me how my words affect them.